Stuff that make you wonder but not own thread worthy

But Klingons weren't turtle heads in McCoy's day.

 

I wasn't counting that one as it wasn't a... for lack of better term... "in-universe" usage, although yes you are entirely correct.

As good as anything. It does feel alittle odd like, trying to make up racial slurs. But at the end of the day, it's a realistic thing that definitely would happen, and we know still DOES happen.

Some were. Actually judging by Discovery and SNW, most were? Smoothead Klingons seem to not be particularly prominent. We just happen to get a few groups in TOS.

I've figured that it was somewhat of a coincidence... that the smootheads may have been seen as something of undesirables, lumped together, and consolidated into an area of space. It just so happens that was the area of space Kirk's 1701 was operating in, so they had a sort of disproportionate contact with them.

 

Even so, given that Klingona with brow ridges had not been seen yet, McCoy would obviously not use that particular slur. I'm sure he could come up with something, though.

 

They were seen though. Roughly a decade prior, the Federation just fought a massive war against... uh... "Klingons", and just 5 years prior Pike's Enterprise had encounters with ridged Klingons. Not to mention that Klingons up through 2154 were all brow ridged.

McCoy would certainly have familiarity with them. Realistically, MOST people are probably much more familiar with the ridged Klingons. It does kind of track with Bashir having no idea they were Klingons... it does make an amount of sense if the smoothhead Klingons were not particularly widespread. I can be comfortable thinking that the infected smoothheads were basically rounded up and sent to the fringe of the Empire, which ALSO was the fringe frontier of Federation space.

Unless you were on a deep space assignment along that directional heading, most probably didn't encounter the smoothhead Klingons. They seem to be something of a historical footnote, not what every Klingon looked like.

 

Would they have been given an inferior grunt assignment due to prejudice?

 

Almost certainly yes. It seems to be a shameful thing, given Worf's "We don't discuss it", and the fact that Klingons we knew as smootheads had it corrected by the 24th century.

It may have also been partly just pragmatic... to stop the virus from spreading, they just had those infected have no contact with other Klingons. They sent them to a corner of space and had them do Klingon things, just away from other Klingons.

I would wager the first encounter was odd. Kirk sees a D7, and then on screen there's just, human looking dudes. But they have the information from NX-01, so they would quickly realize what's going on.

 

I suppose having to deal with Humans would be a form of punishment.

 

I'm not even entirely sure it's "punishment" per say, but it's surely at least... shameful to have the condition.

They're just... different too. ENT suggests that it's not ONLY physical changes that occur. The Smoothhead Klingons brains are altered to be more human... they think like humans. It's actually something of an advantage for the Empire to send them to the frontier to compete with the Federation there, while also making it easier on everyone involved. They probably have mild troubles in regular Klingon society and vice versa because they are quite literally "wired differently".

 

It might also explain the title 'Dahar Master'. Only 3 Klingons we've seen have held that title... Kang, Koloth, and Kor. All had smooth heads in TOS. And at least one had a noble blood lineage (Kor). Given the reverence that title had, it's certainly possible that those Klingons with smooth heads commanded others so well and achieved so many greater victories (and quite possibly greatly expanded the Empire) because their thought processes were changed that they actually made ridge headed Klingons look bad in comparison. Hence the title 'Dahar Master'.

 

Totally. The fact that they had what was probably looked upon as a disadvantage and still became absolutely legendary was a big deal.

 

I'm a little surprised there's no onscreen slurs for Klingons, given how much screen time they have. Not even "Day of the Dove," in which hostilities are being artificially inflamed from without, gives any anti-Klingon slurs. Heck, Soock gets more verbal abuse than the Klingons do in that episode.

 

Chekov calls them "Cossacks" (twice, Dove and Tribbles) and "filthy Klingon murderers", but nothing that couldn't just as easily be said about humans.

 

There's also the bit in "Tribbles" when Chekov implies that Klingons stink ("One parsec, sir. Close enough to smell them."). That's racist, but it's not a slur per se.

 

And it can also be said about humans. BO, leather, personal products, blood...

 

Christ, Troi falls apart in a minute in "The Loss." Goddamn, at least wait until you're out of the 2D aliens before you go to pieces.

 

The Klingons are the enemy at this point in the timeline. Dehumanizing (de-Klingonizing?) your enemy is a time-honored wartime behavior. If for no other reason than that it makes it easier to kill them, when the time comes.

They had to take her through all the stages of grief in one episode, while balancing it with the 2-D lemming threat of the week. Even though TNG didn't dance on the Big Red Reset Button the way VOY did, they weren't going to have a character go through a multi-episode development arc.

Only good thing about that episode was that it showed that even if Troi went down, Enterprise would still have a great counselor. She was savvy, she was wise, she was a great listener... and if the ship's shuttlepads were ever out of commission, the shuttles could just land on her hat.

 

I love this so much

 

Andy Robinson is in the episode of "The Pretender" I'm watching, as an ATF agent. It was fun just seeing him as "some guy"

 

What the hell is Goofy? He's not a dog, right?